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Publishing TS Libraries for Fun and Profit - Mark Erikson, TypeScript Congress 2023
Discover the challenges and complexities of publishing TypeScript libraries, from ESM and CommonJS formats to maintaining backwards compatibility. Learn how the author found a solution with tsup and the evolving state of the ecosystem.
- Publishing a TypeScript library requires understanding the complexities of ESM, CommonJS, and UMD file formats, as well as the differences in how module systems work in browsers and Node.js.
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The
exportsfield inpackage.jsonis not well-supported, and tools like Webpack 4 and Rollup have their own expectations. - Recognizing the need for a more clear guide, the author wrote a blog post about their experiences and pain points in publishing TypeScript libraries.
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The author’s research showed that adding
type moduleandexportsfields did not necessarily solve the problems. - Much of the ecosystem is still based on CommonJS and ESM, with many libraries using both file formats simultaneously.
- Writing a fully-definitive guide on how to publish a package is a complex task.
- The author has found tsup, a wrapper around esbuild, to be helpful in managing build artifacts and types.
- There are many different tools and configurations being used, making it difficult to maintain backwards compatibility.
- The author’s experiment with changing the package format from CommonJS to ESM revealed many unexpected issues.
- The TypeScript team has been working on improving support for ESM, but the ecosystem is still in flux.
- The author’s conclusion is that publishing a TypeScript library requires a deep understanding of the complexities involved and a willingness to adapt to changing technologies and tooling.